Yorkshire town hopes team’s promotion to the big time energises the area in a repeat of the Swansea trickle-down effect

The Huddersfield Town megastore by the main entrance to the John Smith’s Stadium is not mega in the normal sense: it’s more like a boutique, even though the sales space has to be shared with the football club’s groundmates, the Huddersfield Giants rugby league team. But right now business is mega all right.

On Saturday Huddersfield make their debut in that gravity-defying financial phenomenon, the Premier League, and all day, every day the population of this normally sane and down-to-earth town have been pouring in to get their replica shirts and ancillary souvenirs and tat. Four staff members were working non-stop on Monday serving football customers; on the Giants’ side, in the town that gave birth to rugby league, a lone young man could only stare wistfully at his till. “It’s been like Christmas in here all summer,” he said. “Bit quiet for you, though?” He nodded.